It’s been ten years to the day that my partner incepted me with the idea that I could actually run my own gym. 

The notion terrified me. I did not have the confidence to start my own business. And my independent streak makes me a terrible employee. 

But she pushed me and it worked out. Ten years later, here’s a brief glimpse of the gym. The video is sans the most important element: the clients who have used the space day in day out for almost a decade. 

We took a monopoly approach to the gym of build as we go. We started with a few kettlebells, rings and pull ups bars. The frugality was a financial necessity. And we managed to convince clients that it was enough. 

And boy did we luck out on some great clients. Year in, year out, they’ve shown up and supported our coaching ambitions. And the subscriptions they pay us have helped us ideate and gradually build out the gym. 

One of the byproducts of that approach turned out to be the tooling of the gym as our skills evolved and we grew as coaches. Too often gyms start out with a whole bunch of shiny tools with no regard for the audience it serves. But we’ve gradually added stuff that our clients enjoy using. That results in a gym with very little unused equipment. Again crucial given the space crunch and premium prices we pay for a mid-sized space. 

We’ve had our share of equipment misses too. But it mostly worked out fine. 

The video is missing some juicy bits like our lever squat, belt squat and center mass bells. But I think I am going try and chronicle our journey better moving forward.